The winter tends to bring a lot of service calls to MoreVent due to bursting pipes. It’s important that you get a yearly inspection, usually between Halloween and Thanksgiving, to have MoreVent ensure that all your pipes are properly wrapped and insulated for the cold temperatures.
The first thing we want to check is the placement of the piping in your home. If the piping is along an outside wall or unconditioned crawlspace, we have to make sure all air holes are sealed. Any time you have cold air coming through a hole and hitting a pipe, we’ve got seal it up.
If the pipe is for an outside hose bib or spigot, my recommendation is to close off that line and drain the water so that in the winter you’re not exposing that pipe to a potential break.
Next, we turn to insulation. They make foam insulation specific for plumbing pipe. We need to wrap that foam around all the vulnerable piping.
If you don’t ensure proper wrapping and protection for your pipe, you could be facing a future pipe burst. When water freezes, it expands. And when the pipe breaks, there’s no way to stop that water from continually running out until you manually find the shutoff for the valve to that pipe.
It’s a huge headache for you as a homeowner and there’s really no need to run into that situation. Just put a reminder on your calendar around Halloween to call us at MoreVent and schedule an inspection. We’ll make sure your pipes are good to go for freezing weather.